December 2010

After almost 16 years at Burdett House Porterbrook Leasing have moved into new, modern premises to support the growth and development of the business.

The official opening of the brand new office which is at Pride Park in Derby on Wednesday 1 st December was performed by Peter Gadsby, Chairman of Ark Capital. Peter Gadsby has built a successful reputation within the property sector and spearheaded the development of Pride Park, the location of a number of railway companies, and has been very supportive of the Porterbrook move.

The office, which is situated on the old Derby locomotive works, has been officially named Ivatt House, after Henry George Ivatt who was the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London Midland Scottish Railway in 1945. On nationalisation in 1948 Ivatt remained as CME of the London Midland Region and continued to build standard existing locomotive types in Derby until his retirement in 1951. The famous Ivatt twins, diesel-electric locomotives 10000 and 10001, built by the LMS in association with English Electric were Britain's first main-line diesel locomotives. Ivatt himself drove LMS 10000 out of the shed at the works on December 5 th 1947, the location of Porterbrook's new office.

Paul Francis, Managing Director of Porterbrook said “We are delighted with our move to a new office at Pride Park. It provides the company with fresh new facilities which are in the heart of Derby's railway community.”

October 2010

As of 15 th October 2010 the ownership structure of Porterbrook has changed.

Lloyds Development Capital (LDC), part of the Lloyds Banking Group, exited from Porterbrook through an institutional purchase arrangement with the other existing partners, Deutsche Bank AG, Antin Infrastructure Partners and OP Trust.

The focus, strategic direction and management structure of the company are unaffected by this change and Porterbrook will continue to be a leading supplier of rolling stock and investment to the UK rail industry.

July 2010

Porterbrook Leasing has completed a transaction to purchase 44 Bombardier class 377 dual voltage Electric Multiple Unit vehicles from train operator Southern at a cost of £54m.

The 44 vehicles made up of 11 4 car units were originally ordered by Southern and delivered into operation in the last few months. They will be integrated into the current class 377 fleet owned by Porterbrook and operated by Southern which will now total 792 vehicles and is the largest rolling stock class in the UK.

The trains are currently sub leased to First Capital Connect as part of the Thameslink upgrade project and are expected to remain there until replaced by new trains when they will return to Southern.

June 2010

On 9 th June 2010 Porterbrook successfully issued two sterling bonds with a value of £520 million.

The proceeds of this initial issuance have been used to prepay certain senior term loans which Porterbrook entered into in 2008 following its acquisition by the current owners, a consortium led by Deutsche Bank AG.

The initial dealers in respect of the bond programme were Barclays Bank Plc, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank, Lloyds TSB Bank plc and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc. The senior lenders involved in the bank refinancing were Abbey National Treasury Services plc, Barclays Bank plc, BNP Paribas, London Branch, Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Dexia Credit Local, London Branch, Lloyds TSB Bank plc, Lombard North Central plc and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

The issue was rated BBB by Standard & Poor's.

Paul Francis, Managing Director for Porterbrook said “Porterbrook management and shareholders are delighted to have successfully issued sterling bonds in what have been difficult market conditions. The bond issue secures long term funding for a sizable part of the business which allows the company to plan and execute the long term strategy of developing its rolling stock assets.

February 2010

Porterbrook agreed a contract extension with Unipart Rail to overhaul Class 455 Bogies until December 2013.

The contract extension is for the continuation of supply, of 455-bogie overhaul out of the Doncaster site, which equates to approximately 200 bogies per year.

A tremendous amount of investment has been made by both parties to bring the quality of the bogies back to a standard, which has effectively given them a ‘half life' upgrade.

Developing a new Stage III (a) compliant diesel engine conforming to the latest European standards for emission reduction.  Porterbrook worked in conjunction with Bombardier Transportation, Transport for Scotland and First ScotRail to perform a trial of the new engine design.  Porterbrook contributed funding and project management for the trial, which resulted in six trial engines undergoing extensive passenger service trials on the rail network.  The trial concluded by endorsing the Stage III (a) compliant engine for use on future new build vehicles, but did not justify an economic case for retrospective conversion of engines on existing vehicles.

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